96 o -laIr -rt1-'. S 1 (j. gets a J-I-JIl. J,\J haircut! . rrThere is hardly any o her art more befogged, more conzplzcated by misconception, posturing or preten- sions than music." So says John Hallstrom in Relax and Listen. Then he sho\vs what great n1usic really is-warn1, living, exciting- and easy to understand. You'll enjoy Hallstronl's irrev- erent treatn1ent of music's sacred cows. You'll like his breezy, hu- n1orous writing. He tells 'v hat you need to knovv to start enjoying symphonies, con- certos, operas, etc., right away. . .lists the records to begin with. $2.50 at record shops & bookstores. Rinehart & Co., Inc. , " \ ' \)\ r _ ,'',g. { / 4JP'./' ... .",. -relax and 1isteo the happy book of music appreciation by John Hallstrom ,J " Our Brothers' Kr.epers Millions all over the world today are suffering an undeserved and cruel fate-a fate that, ex- cept for a difference in geography, might well be yours. Put yourself in their place and decide for yourself whether you can refuse to be your brother's keeper. The peace for which we all fought together cannot be realized if hunger and privation stalk across more than half the world, if the grim spectre of another war lurks amid the misery and discontent engendered by our rèal enemy-famine overseas. Give Them This Day . . . Contribute to your local American Overseas Aid-United Nations Appeal for' Children; or to AOA- UNAC National Headquarters. 39 Broadway. New York 6, N. Y. " p (' - THEY WORK fiil .! r ,' -JI [ 1 '..- ..-":w'" .". Of' . r#..... \ w t ;,,: &fì \ :: 1\1 {:.::,,:.,...,.. ",:,,;.:::,>..,- '.:, ;:1\ *-, ... \. ':-: y.... .: < 1. f ' :::::::::.:;:.: :.....i::::' J1 :r:: :::::::':':-:'-: :{ :; t:::::::::::,:...-,-.- ØW} G Z'pp(J L - '3.25 AT YOUR DEALEIT ZlPPO .FOe CO. DEPT. 5, ........r.. P.. /}>}> IGHTER sometimes with confusing results. In <"..; the title of "Zu]eika Dobson," there is a simple juxtaposition of the exotic and the British; but in the novel itself the two are en tangled in a curjous way. I agree with Mr. Kronenberger-though <"..; <"..; I know we are in a minority-that there is something unsatisfactory and, as he says, "unpalatable" about this hook. rrhe trouble, I believe, is due to the fact that in this case the two sets of colors, instead of being blended in a fabric, have got into a kind of snarl. '--' \Vhat is the pattern or the point of "Zuleika"? Is it satire or parody or nonsense or what? It is full of a111using thi11gs and patches of clever writing, but it has also tIreSOl11e stretches of the thoughts and conversations .of characters who do not even have the two-dit11ensional kind of life-like that of the people of Congreve or Firban - that is possible within a comic conven- tion. lVlax I eerbohm 111ay be trying to satirize the admiration of ()xford for a duke, but, just as he frankly hit11- self adores Oxford, so he seems fasci- nated, less frankly, by his duke, who sets the fashion for all the other under- graduates. (One rel11e111bers vlax's eulogy of 0 uida; and his attitude to- ward the Duke is closely related to his attitude toward royalty, a subject with which he was preoccupied in his first two collections of essa)' s and to which, in both his writings and his drawings, he has constantly returned. Though he has 111ade a good deal of fun of English l11onarch5 and their royal households, one feels that he has been s0111ewhat beglal110ured by thel11. 1 he waspishness he sOI11etimes displayed at the expense of George V and his fal11ily-whol11 he . saluted with satirical verses at the ti111e of the coronation and later caricatured so sharpl} that a protest from an official source c0111pelled Max to rel110ve cer- tain drawings frol11 one of his exhibi- tions-seel11s largel} to have been prol11pted by resentl11ent at their failure to be glal11orous enough.) But though it is English to love a duke, the Duke of Dorset projected by Beerbohm is 13yzantine and apocalyptic. The hy- perbole of l11agnificence here has its ef- fectiveness, poetic and cOl11ic, but it is urel}' not of Oxford. The wholesale suicide at the end of the book is also apocalyptic, but it seel11S to l11e COl11- p1ete1y unreal, cOl11pletely unal11using. An exotic Í111agination has lost touch with an English subject. And Max Beerbohl11's Ï111agination has in it elf never been very strong. It is, in general-to l11Y taste, at any rate- in this department of fairy-tale fantasy that he is usually least successful. Neither "Zuleika" nor "The Happy Hypocrite)) is a favorite of mine among his works; <"..; and "The Dreadful Dragon of Hay L, _ Hill" is perhaps the only really bad thing that he has allowed to get into a book. These stories forc(' unworkable con- ceits; they get queerly out of range of l\;lax's taste. He is 111uch better when- In "Enoch. Soames" or "Not That I Would 13oast" -h e sticks closer to a real background. Yet this is not enough, with I\;lax, to produce one of his first-rate stories: the feeblest of the "Seven Men" are the ones that are least fantastic. l\1ax's talent for il11personation, ex- traordinary in its way, is ah110st ex- clusively literary-that is, he can give you a poel11, a play, a letter, a speech in Parlial11ent, but he is unable to give you people-the heroine' of "Zuleika," for exa111pl -whose style can have no basis in reading. \\Then Zuleika begIns to talk like a book, she has tu explain that she has picke up the habit frol11 a certain Mr. Beerbohl11, "who once sat next to I11e at dinner." 'The two short stories l11entioned above arc the virtuoso pIeces of a parodist, as is the best thing in (C\ ' 1 0 1 1 A o " 0 f .LV aln y on t le Ir, a portraIt 0 a sen- tentious old fraud called "T. Fenning Dodworth;" and "Zuleika," it seel11S to 111e, succeeds only when the cOl11edy is verbal, when it arrives at its own kind of parody by eXploiting a half-burlesque preciosity. T HERE is another set of contrasts in Max's work which should prob- ably be approached in another way.. The alien in M'ax Beerbohl11 has, one guesses, adapted hi111self to England at SOI11e cost to his better intelligence, but he takes his revenge in indirect ways and at un- expected 1110111ents. He has learned the l110st perfect l11anners. "Before all things, frul11 first to last," he wrote, or quoted, on the flyleaf of his first book, "1 al11 utterly purposed that I will not of- fend." Yet his writing is full of hoaxes: '-, he loves to disconcert the reader with bogl!-s historical characters and invented literary references, as he is reported, in private life, to be addicted to such prac- tical joking as pasting indecent words into the text of J uhn Drinkwater's poel11S and leaving the book on the night tahle of his guest r00111. '- These irreverent pranks by an Ì111P at the expense of a perfect little gentle- man, like the dandiacal aberrations of the foreigner in Max who is bored '- with his bowler hat, contribute to the